Steve Beresford
Signals For Tea - His Piano And Orchestra

Steve Beresford is one of those from the Nato label, a French label that could be classified within those musical realms between avant-garde and improvisation, yet far from the clichés that such genres bring to mind, like heaviness, conceptualism, noise, and atonality. The productions from the Nato house that I know convey, with great immediacy, and if you will, simplicity, very particular musical situations.

The musicians involved have a marked personality, people like Tony Hymas, Lol Coxhill, Tony Coe, Clive Bell, just to name a few.

However, this record is released by Avant - the Japanese label of Zorn - and the proposal does not stray much from what was written above, with a sung jazz, between the already-heard and the novelty, with a vintage aftertaste perfectly balanced by the modern and dynamic flair that the Masada quartet - Kenny Wollesen instead of Joey Baron - brings to everything.

For such an important occasion, Beresford spares nothing and writes and interprets excellent songs by singing fresh lyrics authored by Andrew Brenner. Masada, in turn, play without exuberance, as is necessary when accompanying a piano and a voice almost on the edge of nonchalance.

Steve Beresford is one of those characters from the musical undergrowth that you'll never know who they are, but who distill preciousness to gather and take home.

"Signals for tea" is one of these.